The Presentation of Women in Four Short Stories

The Presentation of Women in Four Short Stories

The sex of an author can play a huge part of their opinion towards

members of the opposite and same sex. In this essay, I will be

analysing the way in which women are portrayed in four different

stories. I will also be commenting on why the authors may have chosen

to portray the females in this way.

In the early 19th Century, women were supposed to play their role in

society as being inferior to men. Hardy – author of ‘Tony Kytes, the

Arch-Deceiver’ – portrays this well in his story. All three of the

women’s characters’ are fighting to win one man’s heart resulting in

them not getting along.

“What has he been promising you? A pretty load of nonsense, I expect!”

In this story, as it is the women who are inferior, it is them doing

the chasing, whereas this is a complete contrast to ‘The Woman’s

Rose’. In Schreiner’s short story, the men not the other way around

are chasing the women.

“All the men worshipped her.”

Hardy’s story is more historically accurate than Schreiner’s due to

the fact that in Schreiner’s story the woman appear to be superior to

the men, whereas this would not be the case in real 19th Century. The

fact that a woman wrote ‘The Woman’s Rose’ may help explain why the

women are more important; Schreiner most probably felt sympathetic

towards women in general as they are deemed to be less important than

men.

Women may have been inferior to men but does this mean they were

controlled by them too? In Gilman’s story – ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ –

it is pretty hard to tell who has the control, this is because neither

one of the two has complete control of the relationship. However, in

the physical sense, it is John, the husband, who has control over his

ill wife.

“hardly lets me stir without special direction”

I believe Gilman made the male more dominant in this story because

women were hypothetically supposed to obey men and do as they were